counter target

[Matt Zagrabelny <mzagrabe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings netfilter,

I have a question about the location of a "counter" statement.

I see from the wiki [0] that placing a counter for the default policy
comes *after* the policy:

table ip counter_demo {
    chain IN {
        type filter hook input priority filter; policy drop;

        protocol tcp counter
    }
}

That feels a little counterintuitive to place a counter after the
packet "appears" to have been dropped.

Thus, do I place other counter statements *after* their corresponding
netfilter stanzas:

table inet filter {
    chain input {
        # accept traffic originated from us
        ct state vmap {
            established: accept,
            related:     accept,
            invalid:     drop,
        }
        counter
    }
}

Or do I place the counter before:

table inet filter {
    chain input {
        counter

        # accept traffic originated from us
        ct state vmap {
            established: accept,
            related:     accept,
            invalid:     drop,
        }
    }
}

Or does it not matter?

Thanks for helping me understand.

Cheers,

-m

[0] https://wiki.nftables.org/wiki-nftables/index.php/Counters